


breaking the atmosphere

by youheldyourbreath



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy has a kid in space, Bellamy hears voices, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Echo, he's real upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11080104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: Bellamy hears Clarke's voice in space after they leave her to die on earth. She's taken up residence in his head as his conscience. And its the worst. How do you get over a dead girl? The answer: you don't.





	breaking the atmosphere

Clarke.

He could hear her name in his head like a broken record every day of his hellish existence on the Ark. If it wasn't her name, it was her voice that had somehow become the sound of his conscience. She was half-ghost and all memory now. She lived only in his head and thinking about that sometimes incapacitated him for hours. At least at first. 

During the first 100 days back in space, his friends and Echo tried to get him to open up about what had happened on Earth, when he had closed the door on her and sentenced her to a radiated death. They all liked to speak about it in warmer tones than that. Harper would tell him that Clarke had trusted him and would have been proud of his choice to save her friends. Monty liked to reassure him that Clarke wasn't alone when she died, she had all of her friends love with her. Emori expressed her gratitude to Clarke for saving her life. Echo, too. Murphy pretended Clarke was some kind of hilarious memory they all had in common. Her death didn't seem to affect him much and he always looked at Bellamy like he was expecting him to get over it. People died every day.

Raven, gratefully, didn't talk about her at all. She knew, or at least understood, the burden of his choice. They had both, in some way, left Clarke down on that radiated planet to die. Their actions sentenced her to death.

Bellamy wanted to vomit. Or at least scream. He wondered if screaming mattered in space with no one to hear it. 

But he held it together most days. He grit his teeth and led his small group on the ring.

Boredom did not come for them during the first four hundred days, over a year. There was too much to do and too much to fix. Things were constantly breaking and Raven had rigged an alarm system to alert the crew when something was wrong. The sirens blared more often than not. There was no peace in space and that was how Bellamy liked it. Clarke's ghost voice was quieter when he was not left alone with his thoughts.

Yet, somewhere around a year and a half into their space trip, the Ark was self-sustaining again. Their daily lives turned into chores and games to fight off boredom. 

It was when things were quiet again he started to hear her more clearly. 

At first it was innocuous, he had worked out too hard in one of the detention cells--hers, always hers-- and he was nearly ill from how overworked he was. He saw a flash of her eyes in his head, the unimpressed look she gave him down on Earth at the dropship. Her voice was as clear as a bell, "You have chores to do. Use your head, Bellamy."

He shook his head free of the chastising voice. 

But she did not leave. She popped up everywhere. From the dining hall to the algae farm to his bedroom late at night when he was restless and alone. 

Only once he made the mistake of talking back to her. He was with the group in the dining hall and Murphy was teasing Monty about his haircut, he had buzzed it to keep Jasper near to him in space, and Bellamy had growled out a command, "Leave him alone, Murphy."

Clarke's calm, almost amused voice responded, "They're just playing around, Bellamy. You remember fun, right?"

He whispered back, "Shut up, Clarke."

He looked up into the sad, worried eyes of his crew-mates. It was the first time he had said Clarke's name since they had arrived in space. Bellamy was too careful whenever he vaguely mentioned her and it was always the pronoun game. Everyone knew who he meant and they never pushed him. But when he whispered her name they looked at him sadly, Raven looked downright distraught. 

His voice was rough, "Alright, enough."

"Bellamy," Raven started.

"I said enough." He stood up, "I'm going to bed. Not hungry."

"Bell-" Monty tried.

He did not head their pleas. Bellamy shuffled his way down the corridor to his room and locked the door behind himself. Saying her name was like invoking a spirit. Angrily, he promised himself he wouldn't say her name out loud again. She was loud and constant enough in his thoughts that he didn't need to give her memory any more power over him than she already had.

That night he padded down the hall to Echo's room. Clarke's voice was insistent in his head, "You're making a mistake."

"I'm doing whatever the hell I want," he thought back.

He could hear the frown in her voice when she said, "This isn't going to make it hurt any less."

"Maybe not," he reasoned in his head, "But its better than fixating on a dead girl."

No voice responded. His head was quiet. And so, he knocked.

Echo opened the door and her eyes flashed. She did not seem surprised to see him at her door. She stood aside, letting him in and locking the door behind them. She watched him like a curious, wild animal. They stood in silence for several minutes before Echo seemed to decide something. Bellamy did not want to guess what. She stepped in so they were nose to nose, "Don't call me her name."

Whatever he was expecting her to say it was not that. He swallowed thickly, as a familiar voice prickled warnings in the back of his head. "I won't," he agreed.

"Okay," she grabbed the front of his shirt and brought him down for a kiss. It was fevered and desperate and Bellamy found it muted the nagging voice in his head. He touched her relentlessly as they fell back into the bed. Her chest was smaller than Clarke's, her limbs were longer, her hair was the wrong color, her eyes were not a striking blue. So he closed his eyes and imagined. He said he wouldn't call her Clarke's name, he never said he wouldn't imagine her.

Their clothes fell away and Bellamy sheathed himself in a hard thrust. Echo whimpered in wanting. Her voice was not low enough or gruff enough. He didn't want her, he loved a dead girl. 

The voice in Bellamy's head grew stronger and stronger with each angled push. Clarke's teasing voice nipped in his ear, "It's not me. I'm dead because you left me behind. Did you know that I showed up thirty seconds after you blasted off? If you had waited, Bellamy, just one more minute I would be alive. You let me die. You killed me."

"Yes," his ragged voice responded, "Yes." He did. He killed her. She was dead because he could not wait, because he had used his head and left his heart to burn on the ground. His thrusts grew more and more erratic and he rolled out a litany of one word. "Yes.....yes....yes, yes, yes, yesyesyesyes....ye-"

Echo roared when she came and her fluttering around him had him tripping over into a powerful orgasm.

After, when they lay there sated and simultaneously empty, Echo rolled on her side to look at him. Her hand affectionately brushed hair out of his eyes. His focus stayed on the ceiling. Her voice was surprisingly soft, "Tell me about her."

His head lolled to the side, gazing at her, "Why?"

"Because Clarke," Bellamy winced, "I mean, she was more legend to me than person. Wanheda or your leader, but you were her partner in nearly all things. So who was she? Who was she when she wasn't leading?"

"She liked to draw," he found himself saying, "She could drink Monty's moonshine without going blind. She really liked animals. Like she was always surprised and thrilled to see them." He wanted to say more things, personal things about her but the only thing that came to mind was trite and he had to say it, "And she had this watch. I dunno what happened to it but it belonged to her Dad. I remember that stupid watch so clearly. Why do I remember that dumb watch?"

"Because you have no token of her. In my culture, when someone dies we cut off their braid and keep it as a token. You have nothing."

"Except the memory a fucking watch."

"Bellamy?" Echo said almost meekly, "What is a watch?"

His eyes widened and then, a laugh ripped out of him with unexpected force. It was a joyful sounding laugh that left him breathless. And then, it crumpled into a sob equally as surprising as the laugh. Echo reached for him, wrapping her arms around him and she let him cry. 

He cried for hours until they heard the others rustling about the ring. Only then he pulled himself together. Echo kissed his face once, twice, then three times for good measure until he quieted completely. 

In the darkness of the room, Echo whispered into his knotted hair, "You must live, Belomi kom Skaikru. You must live and be happy. Not for your sister, not for Clarke, but for yourself."

The little voice that nagged his every thought added, "Do not pity the dead, Bellamy. We're gone. Nothing can hurt us now."

He curled around Echo, banishing Clarke from his mind, or at least ignoring her ever present voice, "I have no idea how to do that."

"You will learn," Echo offered gently. 

The days after that the pain of Clarke's death did not subside but learning to live with it got easier. And years went by. The world from space grew less hostile and green spots began to pop up everywhere. But the thing that silenced Clarke's voice forever was a perfect, high-pitched scream.

Four years into their space journey, Echo's water broke. Bellamy knew their life together was happy, convenient at best most days, but Echo gave him something much more powerful than romance, she gave him his son, Aurelius.

He was tracing his hand across Echo's belly when it happened. He saw her face contort in pain and she nearly knocked him off their bed with the amount of force she sat up with. "Bellamy," she wheezed, "They're coming."

Seven hours. That was how long Echo was in labor before Raven pulled him to the side with the news.

"Bellamy," her voice was too gentle, like she was preparing him for the worst, "Something is wrong. I...I don't know what we can do. We don't have a doctor."

All of the color drained from Bellamy's face, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm not a doctor." Her voice was firm. "Neither is Monty. You're the only person that's delivered a baby and you told me you didn't really do anything except catch Octavia."

"So we do nothing?" Bellamy blinked. 

Raven looked him dead in the eye, her eyes fierce, "You get your ass in there and you muster up whatever fucking strength you have for her. Because she needs you."

Her words were sobering. Bellamy lifted his chin and stepped into medical. Echo was bent over a chair, gripping the wood. She was covered in a thin layer of sweat and her eyes were beat red from tears. Their eyes connected and she reached a hand out to him. He took five long steps over to Echo and grabbed her hand. He kissed her palm over and over again. 

"Your kid is as difficult as you are," she croaked. 

Bellamy barked a watery laugh, "Echo, now isn't the time to joke."

She swallowed, "Bell, I may not get another chance."

"You will," he insisted, "You will. You and the baby are going to be fine."

"Bellamy," she snapped, "Listen to me. The ground. It's their birthright. Take them to the ground."

"You are going to make it."

"We have no healer," she countered, "Something is wrong. I can feel it. Ai gonplei ste odon."

He shook his head, "Your fight is not over."

"The ground," she managed quietly, "Take them to the ground."

Her face settled into that decisive look she gave him the first night they were together. This time he knew what she was deciding. He barely had enough time to lean down to grab their son as he fell into the world. His cry was loud and sharp and Bellamy gasped in utter disbelief. This tiny person was his son, his child. 

"Let me," Echo's weak voice panted, "Let me see them."

"Him," Bellamy said amazed, "It's a boy." He gingerly put the baby in Echo's arms. She was fading, Bellamy could see it. He kissed her once, a thank you for everything. For putting him back together, for his son. He couldn't lose another person now. His little boy needed his mother. "Echo," his voice cracked, "Echo, stay with me."

"The ground," she smiled. 

"Echo." She didn't respond. 

"Echo," he said stronger. 

"ECHO!" The last time was loud and desperate. "Oh no," he kissed her face, "Oh no, no, no. Echo, come back. Let me say goodbye. Echo. Oh no, please."

His son cried louder, bothered by the distress of his father's voice. 

"Bellamy?" Raven's voice came from behind him. He turned and saw her lingering in the door, her face was broken with sadness. 

"Help me, Raven," he implored. "Help me."

She said nothing but she did take the baby from his mother's limp arms. She silently managed everything while Bellamy sat there empty at Echo's side. Only when the baby was cleaned up and sleeping soundly did she return him to his father's arms. 

Raven nudged Bellamy's side, offering him his son, "Take your boy, Bellamy. He needs his Dad."

He looked down at the small bundle in his arms. He looked so different now clean and sleeping. He was memorized. The baby had his coloring, a smattering of freckles. He had a tuft of brown hair. And he was perfect. His heart constricted painfully. This was love like nothing he'd experienced before. Different than Octavia, different than his mother...different than Clarke.

"I love you," he whispered to his son, "And I will take you home. To the ground, Aurelius."

Aurelius, or Lee as everyone called him, turned one four days before they hit five years in space. He was the life and spirit of the ring. Wherever Lee went, laughter followed. 

But there was a bittersweetness on his first birthday. They would not be returning to the ground. When Lee was six months old Raven told everyone that the ship would be ready to go back to earth. Except-

"Lee," Raven had said.

Bellamy raised an eyebrow and, so, Raven continued, "He can barely hold up his head. If we try and bring him down to earth...re-entry could really hurt him, maybe even kill him."

Murphy sat up, "So what? We wait?"

"Well," Raven shot a look at Monty.

He took over for Raven, "The ring isn't going to last us longer than five years, really. Before things start breaking down permanently."

"I'm not gonna risk Lee's life," Bellamy snapped. He couldn't. Not if re-entry was going to kill his son.

Raven rubbed her face, exhausted, "If the oxygen breaks down, he'll die anyway."

Monty offered, "We can wait one more year, so six years in space, before things get bad. He'll be two. He should be strong enough."

"Should?" Bellamy practically roared. 

"I don't have a solution better than that, Bellamy!" Raven yelled back. 

So six years and some change. That was the promise. 

His first birthday they ignored the ticking clock. The readied spaceship sat silently in the hanger bay just waiting to be used. Bellamy held Lee a little tighter that night. 

By the time his second birthday rolled around, Lee was speaking in broken sentences and walking and running.

And the days got closer and closer to launch.

The night before their return to earth, Bellamy held Lee tight against his chest. His son slept soundly and his black hair swept over his face. He brushed it away and kissed his son's adorable cheeks. "Hey Lee," he whispered, "Aurelius."

His baby blinked blearily, "Dad-dee, it's night time."

"I know," he kissed his little face again, "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Dad-dee," he whined, "No."

"Aurelius, we're going to the ground."

"No, we going to sleep," he snuggled his father. 

He smiled sadly, "Yeah, buddy, we going to sleep."

Bellamy let Aurelius sleep but he did not find rest. He held his toddler in his arms until the morning. 

Raven poked her head into the boys' room in the morning. Aurelius was still asleep but Bellamy looked up at her. "Bellamy?" she whispered, "It's time."

He turned away from Raven to kiss Aurelius' head. He couldn't handle if today went badly. He couldn't live without his son. He couldn't lose someone else he loved. But they were out of time. He had no choice. There was no good choice, isn't that what Clarke said?

"I know," he mumbled, "I know."

Later, they strapped Lee into his makeshift booster seat in the rocket. As they loaded the rocket, everyone was silent. The reality of what might happen laid heavily on their group. The only person that dared to speak was Lee and he was babbling more than talking. His voice was the constant soundtrack to their packing. 

When they were done, Lee clapped, "To the ground. To the ground!"

Bellamy shuttered and strapped himself into the seat next to his son. "Let's do this."

"Bellamy-" Emori tried. 

"We're out of time. Let's go."

Most of the eyes looked to Raven who only nodded, "To the ground, Lee."

Each click of his crew-mates seatbelts were like nails in Bellamy's heart. His son would live or he would die and he could do nothing to stop it. Just like his mother, like everyone who died on the ground, like Echo....like Clarke. He was doomed to watch everyone he loved die. Retribution for his crimes. 

But he would be damned if the world took Lee from him. Not his boy. 

Raven spared him one cursory look before launching the rocket. The force of take off was rough and intense but nothing like impact. The lights in the rocket went out and that coupled with shaking of the rocket pushed Lee into tears. He started to scream for his father. 

"Aurelius," Bellamy shouted over the engine, "It's okay. Daddy's here. It's ok!"

Raven yelled, "Starting our decent into the atmosphere in three...two...one."

There was a lurch and then a hard bang. The ship shook furiously as they descended into Earth. Lee screamed louder and louder until they crashed into the ground. Then, he was quiet. 

Only then did Bellamy start screaming. "Lee! Lee, answer Daddy. Aurelius. Talk to Daddy. Come on, buddy. Aurelius." He snapped out of his seat belt and sat in front of his son whose head hung to the side motionless in his helmet, the same helmet his mother had worn into space. He pulled off him and his son's helmets. Lee didn't respond. 

"Lee," Bellamy voice sounded foreign to him, so lost and sad, "Aurelius, talk to Daddy, please."

Monty placed his hand on Bellamy's shoulder and brushed him to the side. He tried to push Monty out of the way but Murphy restrained him as he thrashed violently. Murphy sneered, "Stop fighting me, Bellamy. Let Monty look at him."

Monty's hand went out and checked Lee's pulse. His shoulders sagged in relief. "A pulse," Monty whispered. "A pulse," he repeated louder, "I found a pulse. He passed out in the impact. He must have been overwhelmed. He's alive."

Bellamy cried, then. Relief flooding through him like a wave. Murphy didn't let him go still, he held him while he cried.

Harper gently roused Lee who seemed disoriented but otherwise fine and alive. He looked up at his father, who was still being held back by Murphy, and sniffled out, "Dad-dee."

Murphy released him and Bellamy flung himself at his little boy, unbuckling his booster seat. He pulled him into his arms and cried harder. "Oh god, Lee. Don't do that. You scared me."

Murphy mumbled, "As touching as this is....it's been six years since I breathed fresh air."

The tension in the rocket dissipated instantly. Emori cut in front of her boyfriend with a cheeky grin and beat him to the airlock. He playfully tapped her behind and with a flourish, she opened the airlock. 

The sun was brighter than Bellamy remembered and the air was more fresh and crisp. He held Lee in his arms but, frankly, Bellamy wasn't looking at earth. He was watching his son's wonderment at the world around him. Echo had said earth was his birthright and Bellamy thought that maybe it was.

For him, the world he left was pain and death and suffering but he had found life again in his son in space. And he would do more than die for him, he would live for him. 

His wiggly toddler ached to walk on the ground. After some coercion, Bellamy relented and let him down. 

Like a shot, Lee took off into the woods. Everyone yelled and hastened after him, splitting up to all look. He was smaller and slower than them but the woods were unfamiliar. 

Bellamy's heart raced. They had survived the trip to the ground, he wouldn't lose his son on earth today. They had won the day and he deserved, dammit, some peace. 

That was when he heard his son's laughter. He rushed through the trees to a clearing. And there was Aurelius. With a woman in a cloak. Bellamy reached for his gun, the one he alway kept in a belt around his waist, and cocked it, lifting it at the woman's back. "Get the hell away from my son."

"Bellamy," Clarke's voice, the one he had heard in his head every day before Lee was born, sprung to life in his head again. No, that wasn't right. That voice was coming from the cloaked woman.

She pulled back her cloak and Bellamy's gun wavered in his hand. Her hair was blonde with pink streaks. Her eyes were the right shade of blue. Her lip was decorated with a perfectly placed beauty mark. It was Clarke. No, that wasn't right either. It was Clarke but not Clarke. The Clarke in his head was eighteen. This was a grown woman, at least twenty-four. 

That was when it all came together for him. The only way she could be older was if she had survived. 

Holy hell. She was alive. 

"Clarke."

"Clarke!" Lee repeated gleefully. 

In a stupor, Bellamy lowered his gun. Lee smiled at his Dad and then up at Clarke. He saw the moment she put it together.

"You and Raven?"

"Echo," he corrected. He wanted to do something, anything. Why, fuck why, after six years (six long years where he thought she was dead) were they wasting time housekeeping? Why wasn't he hugging her? Why wasn't he kissing her? Why was he standing her like an asshole?

"Is she close by?"

"She's dead," Bellamy took a step closer to Clarke. "Died in childbirth. Lee...Aurelius had a tough birth."

She looked genuinely upset by that, "I'm so sorry."

"You're alive." He took another step closer, and closer, and closer again. "You're real, right?" he asked, a breath away from her.

She nodded and Bellamy took her face in his hands and kissed her. It was sweeter than he had imagined from Clarke. She was softer now. He could tell. There was a horrible beat of hesitation on her end before she pulled him closer and deepened the kiss.

"Dad-dee," Lee whined. Bellamy felt a little hand pull on his pants. "Dad-dee."

He smiled against Clarke's lips, laughter teasing at his mouth. Laughter from his son, laughter from relief and unadulterated joy at Clarke. Everything about her. But mostly that she was alive. 

But he did humor his son and looked down, "Yeah, bud?"

"I want a dog."

Clarke's laugh glittered in that special way he remembered. His heart thawed and cracked open at the sound. It was so much better than the ghost that had haunted him all those years. 

"Your son is going to get on great with my daughter. She's constantly asking for a dog."

"Daughter?"

"We've got a lot to catch up on."

Bellamy swung Lee up into his arms, "I'm looking forward to it, princess."

She chewed on her lip thoughtfully and then leaned up to kiss him again. "I've been waiting six years to do that. Sorry."

He smiled stupidly, a look Lee mirrored. 

The ground. They were on the ground. All together. And alive.


End file.
